Cursed
by Partly
Summary: Curses come in many forms.


"I don't want to go, Wolf." Virginia stood in front of the traveling mirror, hands on her hips. "This has to be some sort of mistake. Or a trap. It could be a trap, you know."

"It's not a trap, Dearest. It's a ball." He paused a moment to tuck the blanket more firmly around his daughter who was fast asleep in the travelling bassinet. "It a ball in honor of your father. We have to go."

Virginia snorted. "But it's in the Troll's Kingdom, Wolf. **Trolls**. They could be luring us there just to torture us. "

Wolf smiled at her, infuriatingly patient. "They're not going to torture us, my Lamb Chop. Things have changed with the Trolls. Even Wendell says so."

Virginia scoffed, but relented. "We'll see." She picked up the bassinet as Wolf gathered their bags. "Shall we go, my dear?"

"Only if we have to."

Wolf grinned and raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, there is a full moon tonight. We could leave the little one with some of Wendell's people and we could slip away." He made a quick scratching motion with his right hand that always made Virginia's heart skip a beat. "We could slip away and…" he trailed off, smiling.

"Hide and seek?" Virginia suggested, trying her best to look coquettish.

"Huff-puff," was Wolf's only response.

Virginia smiled and headed into the traveling mirror. This trip could be a lot of fun.

As long as the trolls didn't kill them.

* * *

Tony was waiting for them at the gate to the Troll Palace. He gave Virginia a hug, his granddaughter a kiss and ignored Wolf. "Ah! I was afraid that you wouldn't get here in time." He grinned madly at them. "I have to go and get everything ready before the Dwarves show up."

He turned to leave but Virginia grabbed him by his arm and dragged him to a stop. "Dwarves? The Dwarves are coming here?"

Tony nodded. "Yup."

"I thought the Dwarves wanted to…" she trailed off.

"Kill you," Wolf helpfully provided. "You did break all their mirrors, after all."

"Well, they did for a while, yes," Tony said. "But we worked it out. It turns out that destroying the surplus of magic mirrors really opened up a demand for them." He shrugged. "You'd be surprised how much people are willing to pay for a magic mirror once they found out most of them were destroyed."

He headed into the building. "Then, once I came up with way to use the broken mirrors, they warmed right up. Especially since the Trolls were so willing to pay top dollar."

Virginia had to jog to keep up. And failed miserably. "The Trolls are buying broken mirrors?"

Tony stopped and turned to her. "No. Not the broken mirrors, the mirrored—" He stopped. "No. I want it to be a surprise. Just wait, baby. Go get changed, the ball starts in an hour. Just trust your old man." He smiled at her, a smile that did nothing to calm her nerves, and then disappeared into a small door off to the side.

Virginia almost followed him, ready to demand an explanation but Wolf caught her arm and pulled her in the other direction.

"See," he said. "Nothing to worry about."

"Nothing to worry about?" Virginia sputtered. "When dad says 'Trust you're old man" that's when you really have to start to worry."

Wolf just shook his head and led the way up to their chambers. Virginia followed, still sure that this was all going to end badly.

* * *

Dinner, however, turned out to be surprisingly good. The only distraction was the fact her father was missing.

"Antony is helping set up for the ball," was Wendell's explanation. "He's really quite a genius when it comes to these things."

Before Virginia could work up the courage to ask what "these things" were, the head Troll table erupted into an argument. Finally. Blabberwort stood. "We're gonna to the ball now," she shouted. "Enough eating!"

This caused further arguing at the main table but everyone else stood and headed toward the ballroom. Which, like the dining room, was beautiful: tables with refreshments lined the dance floor and mosaics covered the walls. It took Virginia a moment to realize that the mosaics were made up of pieces of the broken mirrors.

Blabberwort moved to the front of the room. "And now, to entertain: Anthony!"

Virginia stared in amazement as her dad walked into the center of the room. For a moment she was sure he was going to sing or something. Instead, he waited for silence then clapped, twice. The light in the room dimmed and Tony looked up. Suddenly, horrifyingly, Virginia knew exactly what was happening.

She followed Tony's gaze to the ceiling and saw dozens of shiny, spinning spheres descending toward them. At the same time, the undeniable strains of the Bee Gees' "Night Fever" filled the room.

Light shot from ceiling and reflected off the faceted surfaces of the balls. The streams of light filled the room, further bouncing off the mosaics on the walls. Each piece of magical mirror changed the lights in some way, adding color and shapes and texture to the beams.

It was intoxicating. Mesmerizing. Beautiful.

And oh-so-very _wrong_.

She dropped her head to her hands and groaned. Wolf was by her side in a heartbeat. "What is it, my lamb?

Virginia looked at the room full of people, trolls, dwarves, and elves as they succumbed to the throbbing sounds of **disco**. Soon everyone was dancing and a second Bee Gee's song filled the room. "

She looked at Wolf, helpless to explain exactly how wrong this all was. "I told you they were they were going to torture us," she finally said.

Wolf frowned at her. "But it's beautiful. And everyone loves it!"

Virginia watched him dance into the middle of the floor, their daughter laughing in his arms and wondered exactly what she had done to earn this curse.


End file.
